Week 33a: Famous last words (on Substack)

Dear readers, dear friends,

it has been quite a while that I have been publishing my weekly on this platform. Every Friday morning, this has become an important part of my personal (and professional) life and although you, my audience, are a relatively small bunch of people, I love all the interactions coming out of this. It’s a kind of diary for me (by the way: diaries have become somehow extinct, haven’t they?) and it’s a beautiful way to stay in touch with you.

However, the longer I have been using Substack, the more I have got the feeling, that this is not the optimal platform, for the following reasons.

• The whole platform is built around the business idea that writers should monetize their content so that Substack can take parts of the money earned for their profit.
  But I don’t want to earn money with my weekly: First, because I consider this to be part of my paid job at UNIVIE (what a privilege academic freedom is!). And second, because the costs for properly taking care of the taxes that I would need to pay for these incomes would very likely exceed the incomes.
  I feel somehow like a stranger on Substack and I have the feeling that the platform however pushes my readers quite aggressively to subscribe or pledge for things they don’t need and don’t want.

• There have been quite some debates on the internet about Substack’s publication policy. Their business model produces incentives to keep people on the platform and to monetize content that is problematic and sometimes even illegal (at least in Europe). As I am professionally dealing with legal matters of content on the internet, I don’t want to support this business model any longer.
  The last push on this was given by Ingrid Brodnig this week - on Steady Similar statements had been made already some time ago, in particular by Dr. Wolfgang Hagen whom I admire a lot - he did the same move I am trying here in December 2023 already - and deserves credits for this.
  Arstechnica has a very good summary of the situation.

For these main reasons (and quite some technical issues I also don’t like here) I no longer feel comfortable on Substack.

It’s time to go.

I am moving my content - and hopefully you - on a new platform: Ghost.
They have a different business model which is to charge the creators (and not the readers) on a monthly basis.
Although it’s a little absurd that I pay for work (out of my private pocket, of course) now, and although this is another example of how difficult it has become for creators to survive in this gig economy, this is - hopefully - a better fit - for you and for me.

If things go as expected, you should not need to do anything and you should have your weekly update in your inbox next Friday at 6.00 am as usual.
The content’s new website is now https://weekly-update-from-nikolaus-forgo.ghost.io/. Obviously, everything is new there to me now and I will need to invest a lot of time to get this in shape, so please bear with me, if things don’t look fancy yet (even not to my standards).

trusts that you understand my reasons and that you will stay (and bear) with me.

Thank you for your interest on the topics that are important to me and your patience. They mean a lot to me. I would very much, and even more than usual, appreciate your feedback on this step and on what I am doing here.

I will post one last final reminder next Friday here, to inform people overseeing this post within the regular timeframe of this newsletter, but that’s it, here.

Hope to see you soon.

Have a wonderful week.

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)